


Library

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: M/M, Modern AU, Take Your Fandom to Work Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 07:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17219771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: AU where Davey works in a library that is in the process of closing down.





	Library

Days at the Gilda Gale Memorial Library were numbered. Davey had been so excited to get the job, and the first months had been wonderful, spent quietly reshelving books that nobody cared if he spent an hour or two hidden in the stacks reading. The news that the building had been purchased and would be changed into an expensive language tutoring center shocked him.

“People have no idea how important libraries are,” Davey explained over and over again, to anybody who would listen. They were one of the few places left that offered free knowledge to anybody who wanted it, as well as shelter and community to those who needed it most. Besides, the Gilda Gale Memorial Library was just months away from its centennial anniversary. Surely somebody out there had to realize that closing it down was nothing short of a crime.

Davey’s job description started to shift. He sat at the front desk, cataloguing and accounting for each book on a computer that was older than Les was. Turned out the company that had bought the building got the books too, and wanted a full account of them, to keep or to sell. The first edition Harry Potters were a big deal.

There was also a cart of books that nobody could possibly want. Davey was given a black permanent marker, and told to blot out the library’s stamp, so that the books could thrown out. It hurt.

“If they’re going in the trash, why do we even have to bother with all this?” Davey grumbled.

“You’d be surprised,” the head librarian tried to explain. “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve tried to get rid of books, once they became obsolete, only to have some Good Samaritan bring them back to us. We might as well save them the journey.”

Davey wasn’t buying it. “They just want us to pretend like we never existed in the first place,” he grumbled. “Maybe if somebody saw the name they’d do some research, find out what went on, and do something to keep it from happening again.”

The head librarian just sighed and turned away, and Davey kept blotting out the library’s name, until he was dizzy from marker fumes. In all honesty, he didn’t think that most of the books that were being thrown out were of the sort that would do much to honer the library’s legacy. One was a mold covered volume describing the uses of different textiles, complete with examples of the various fabrics seemingly hand-glued to the pages; another was a psychological study from the nineteen fifties focusing on a dentist who literally derived pleasure from peeing on himself in his free time. Davey, who had always thought himself dedicated to the love and preservation of literature, couldn’t find a single volume that he felt moved to try and rescue… At least not until he started having dreams that he was throwing out rare and singular tomes, and destroying the life of some future researcher who could save mankind with his knowledge of dental urination. That’s when Davey started bringing home the unwanted books by the armful.

Jack noticed, when he came over to David’s house, and found a pile of books by his bed consisting of thick bibliographies for works that were long lost, and an illustrated pregnancy handbook that suggested smoking more as a way to keep ones weight down while waiting for the baby to be born.

“It’s really gotten under my skin,” Davey tried to explain. “I have to do something about it.”

“Like a strike?” Jack’s eyes twinkled as he spoke. Davey just sighed.

“Not this time. Not like the last one, at least,” Davey ran his hand through his hair. It was getting hard to sit still. “I was thinking more like, sort of an awareness campaign. With signs and sit ins and all of that.”

“A protest.”

“Yeah. At this rate I’m going to get a reputation for this kind of stuff, but yeah, a protest.”


End file.
